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Without the poor to draw from, the favorite pass-time of every Republican administration, military intervention in minor foreign countries, wouldnít be possible. That is how Republicans put the poor to work.

Yeah, we're just a bunch of poor white trash and minority kids. I'm amazed that we even passed the ASVAB.

In fact, the vast majority of us come from the middle class, mostly because the rich won't serve and the poor don't have the skills to join up. The ones who do come from the poorest strata tend to be the most motivated and intelligent, kids who have managed to survive crappy schools where liberal teachers make sure that they know how to use a condom, even if they can't count the number in the package. The John Kerry's of the world like to look down their noses at us, because it makes them seem superior, but I'd trust any random troopie from FT Hood with my life (in fact, that's part of the job description) before I'd trust anyone from this year's freshman class at Harvard or Yale.

At Coretta Scott King's funeral in early 2006, Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert Kennedy, leaned over to him and whispered, "The torch is being passed to you." "A chill went up my spine," Obama told an aide. (Newsweek)

Nope. They're in offices in commercial districts throughout the US. The main recruiting station in NYC is in the middle of Times Square. The largest one in West LA is on Santa Monica BLVD. Not exactly impoverished areas. The recruiter who got me was in the Midwood part of Brooklyn, which is solidly Middle class. Also, every reserve or guard unit has it's own recruiting office, and those are in some very nice neighborhoods. In fact, about the only place in America where you won't see a recruiting office is on an Ivy League campus.

But, since you're going to keep repeating this particular myth until you get seriously owned, here are the actual stats, courtesy of the Heritage Foundation, which did it's own study a couple of years ago:
Broken down by neighborhoods, we see that the income distribution almost perfectly matches the income distribution of the US, with the lowest end disproportionately underrepresented, not overrepresented. Now, if you want to try to make the case that middle class kids are trekking to poor neighborhoods in order to enlist, you're going to have to prove it.
Note that, once again, the higher income brackets are slightly overrepresented and the lowest is underrepresented by more than 25%.
Here's the summary. Now, in a perfect world, that would elicit a response of "I stand corrected" from you, however, this being an imperfect world (and hence one that needs a military), I won't hold my breath.

At Coretta Scott King's funeral in early 2006, Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert Kennedy, leaned over to him and whispered, "The torch is being passed to you." "A chill went up my spine," Obama told an aide. (Newsweek)

At Coretta Scott King's funeral in early 2006, Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert Kennedy, leaned over to him and whispered, "The torch is being passed to you." "A chill went up my spine," Obama told an aide. (Newsweek)

Not me. The three graphics were like standing on the beach and seeing the USS Lincoln coming over the horizon.

At Coretta Scott King's funeral in early 2006, Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert Kennedy, leaned over to him and whispered, "The torch is being passed to you." "A chill went up my spine," Obama told an aide. (Newsweek)